by Lisa Sorbe
It’s probably a good thing Clint isn’t the love of my life, considering he can’t stand my best friend. And vice-versa.
“What,” he says, appraising the wrapped body pillow plopped in the seat next to him, “is that?” He looks up at me, eyes wide, and grins.
I just smile mysteriously.
“Is that my present?”
“How’d you know?” My voice is light, but there’s a sarcasm to my words that he doesn’t catch. I immediately feel guilty for getting snippy.
Clint shrugs out of his jacket and then reaches for the package, tearing the wrapping with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning. When he sees what it is, he laughs. “I get it, I get it. Good one, babe.” He shakes his head as he pushes his hands deep into the plastic-covered cushion. “Not as plump as my body pillow of choice”—he winks at me—“but it’ll do.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes.
Truthfully, though, I’m glad he likes it. There had been a moment of guilt when I bought it, knowing it was the sort of cheap, jokey gift one usually gets a friend rather than the guy she’s supposed to be in a romantic relationship with.
I huff a laugh under my breath.
Romance and Clint. Two things that most definitely do not go together.
Which is why I’m completely blindsided when he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a delicately wrapped box the size of small fist. I just stare at it, confused. “What’s this?” I throw Clint’s earlier words back at him, although any humor in the act flies right over my head.
“Your gift.” He smiles at me, eyes soft. There’s no smugness on his face, no arrogant curve of his lips. In fact, if I’m not completely mistaken, there’s a humbleness to his features I’ve never seen before. He pushes his half-finished beer away and clasps his hands. I can hear the tap-tap-tap of his designer boots against the metal rung of his stool.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s nervous.
Or maybe I’m more nervous than him, because this box is the exact size of something that it most certainly cannot be. Heck, I mean… There’s no way. None. He wouldn’t.
Would he?
I guess when you don’t really know the man you’ve been shacking up with for months, anything’s possible.
My heart is flapping against my sternum, an irregular beat that has me feeling slightly light-headed. The wrapping is gold and white, and the bow is gold with silver frills. The whole presentation is festive; the paper tucked in at the ends is so precise and neat it could only have been done by a professional.
I’m still staring at it, my hands clutched in my lap, when Clint chuckles. Even that sound is off, the timber higher than normal, a nervous twitch of his windpipe. “Are you going to open it?”
I grab the package, pull it toward me. My fingers might as well be attached to someone else as I unwrap it; I can’t even feel the smooth paper as I peel away the folded layers, revealing a silver box inscribed with the name of a local jeweler. Seeing it makes my breath catch, and I’m really, truly hoping he didn’t…
I lift the lid, my lungs filled to bursting, and exhale.
It’s only a necklace.
Thank whoever’s running the show upstairs, because I don’t think I could have handled it if what I thought was in here was actually, you know, in here.
But then I look at the charm and realize that Clint—The Clint—bought me a freaking diamond necklace. One that looks like it cost a damn pretty penny, too. Which is out-of-this-world crazy because, let’s be honest, it’s Clint.
He clears his throat and I look up, realizing my mouth is hanging open in shock. “Do…” He clears his throat again, shifts in his seat. “What do you think? Do you like it?”
I return my attention to the box, gently lift the chain. There’s a hollow silver heart dangling from the end; it’s covered in diamonds and about the size of a quarter. And while I would normally think any piece of jewelry in the shape of a heart is ridiculously cheesy, this one is beautiful. It’s slanted and strange, a fluid shape that seems to move with the shimmer of the stones. In fact, it doesn’t even appear to be a heart unless you get right up to it, hold it in your hand and run the tips of your fingers over the curves. It’s a piece of art, and I absolutely love it.
I glance up, and there’s that look again. The vulnerable, open Clint that I’ve never seen before. It’s The Clint without the shine.
“It’s beautiful,” I choke out. I feel like all the sobering up I did in the last hour is fading, because my head is spinning. I’m not sure what to make of this. Who is this man sitting before me? I was already aware that I didn’t know him well. But I thought, at the very least, that I had him figured out. And I was almost one hundred percent positive there wasn’t anything he could do that would actually surprise me.
But now? I have no idea.
Do I want to get to know this man, this one right here with the wide eyes and hopeful expression?
Clint smiles, huffs an audible sigh of relief. “Here,” he says, standing and making his way around the table. “Let me.” Taking the chain, he moves behind me and fastens it around my neck. The heart hangs just below my collarbone, its weight heavier than I would have guessed.
His fingers linger a moment, warm on my skin. But when he sits back down, his smug expression is back in place. He looks like the Clint I’ve always known.
I miss the other one. The one that, just for a breath, I caught a glimpse of.
He rubs his hands together, lifts his chin in approval. “Looks hot on you.”
I haven’t even formulated a response to that when my phone buzzes with a text, snagging my attention. I glance down, a message from Adair on the screen:
Don’t come home yet.
It’s quickly followed by another:
I’ll let you know when I’m done.
I frown. What the hell? Is he in the middle of a booty call? Is this what the next two weeks are going to be like? If this is the case, I might as well have stayed at my parents’ place. Being forced out of the house while Adair screws one of his flings or giving my mother a chance to berate me twenty-four seven, seven days a week?
I honestly don’t know which one I’d prefer at this point.
Clint notices my expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing.” I wave my hand, shake my head. “Just Adair. Said not to come back until he texts me that it’s”—I curl my fingers in the air—“okay.” I snort. “Whatever that means.”
But I have a pretty good idea what it means. And so does Clint.
“What an arsehole,” he says, mocking Adair’s accent. It comes out sounding more Australian than Scottish, but whatever. Because he’s saying exactly what I’m thinking.
Fourth of July – 14 Years Old
Girls in my class started getting gifts from boys as far back as the first grade. Cards, chocolates, candy baskets full of Nerds and Lemonheads and Jolly Ranchers and pink containers of Bubble Tape, those stupid teddy bears clutching miniature pillows embroidered with phrases like Be Mine or I ♥ You or My Girl. Things only got worse in middle school, when the student council started selling Candy Grams for holidays like Halloween (Spook-o-Gram), Christmas (Santa Gram), and the ever-popular Valentine’s Day (Heart-o-Gram). Members would bustle in and interrupt class three, four, seven times in order to deliver helium-filled balloons with bags of candy attached to the ends. Girls—lucky girls, certain girls—would sashay down the halls, bundles of balloons clutched tightly in their fists, their chins held high in the knowing that someone (sometimes more than one someone) thought they were special. Guys, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about flaunting their haul. They’d immediately reach for the candy, shoving it into their mouths and letting the balloons float away. By the end of whatever holiday was being celebrated, almost every room in Cedar Hills Middle had a ceiling dotted with multi-colored balloons. One Valentine’s Day, after staying late to get help in chemistry, Mr. Collier told me that if I helped him get al
l the balloons down, I could keep them. I did as he asked, climbing on top of the tables and nearly tripping over faucets and bunsen burners to snag the dangling ribbons. I did it not because I wanted the balloons—who wanted hand-me-down declarations of love?—but because it was the polite thing to do and I didn’t know how to say no. I took the haul outside and released them all in the courtyard, watching with a heavy heart as they sailed away, their colorful streamers lashing and twirling in the cold February wind.
Sure, those days were fun for most. But the whole thing was discouraging for someone like me, who had to endure eight hours-worth of a reminder that no, I wasn’t special. And no, I never would be.
Sometimes, on days like those, when the world seemed hellbent on ignoring me, I wondered if I even existed at all.
Then again, going around completely unnoticed is better than being seen by the right people for the wrong reasons. I was so insignificant that no one even thought to bully me. No one spread rumors about me. No one made fun of me in class. I wasn’t even on their radar.
I was invisible.
But not tonight.
Josh’s backyard had a pool, and somewhere around eleven thirty a few of us headed back to his place to swim. I had never been out this late before, but Taffy assured me that our grandmother routinely took a sleeping pill on the Fourth so she could sleep through, in her words, “the booms” and would never know we weren’t in our beds. I’d never seen our grandmother take any type of pill during the times I stayed over, but what did I know? I decided to trust my cousin, if only because I never wanted this night to end. And besides, our grandmother never mentioned a curfew, so we technically weren’t doing anything wrong by staying out this late, anyway.
Plus, no one else seemed to think anything of the late hour. It was summer, and from the way the guys were rough-housing in the pool and the girls were stripping down to their bikinis, nights like this seemed to be a regular occurrence around here.
I was sitting on the edge of the pool, dangling my legs in the water, the concrete scratchy against the backs of my thighs. I didn’t have a swimming suit, and neither did Taffy, although wherever she and Brian had snuck off to apparently didn’t require one.
I was alone with kids I’d been going to school with since I was in kindergarten, yet I might as well have been around strangers. But the alcohol helped, kept me from feeling as alienated as I normally would. I knew there was probably more liquor in my drinks than Taffy and Brian let on, but after the first one, I couldn’t find it in myself to care. I was light as air, open and outgoing in a way I never was in school. I felt the floaty effects of it even now, along with a little wobbliness I chose to ignore. But sitting by the pool, my legs cool in the water, seemed to still the earth, keep me weighted to the ground.
Until Josh swam up to me and tugged on my ankle, threatening to pull me in.
His touch made my head spin.
“Won’t you get in trouble?” I waved my hand, indicating all the splashing, hooting and hollering. “You know, the noise?”
“Nah,” he said, his long fingers still wrapped around my leg. “It’s just my dad, and he doesn’t care. He usually spends the night at his girlfriend’s house, anyway.”
I nodded. Throughout the years, I’d heard gossip about his parents. About how they split up and his mom relinquished custody to his dad before skipping town and moving to New York with the man she’d been having an affair with. It was all very sordid, and I remember feeling so sorry for Josh when I heard that I almost sent him a Santa Gram—anonymously, of course—when the divorce became final last year so he’d still feel like someone cared. He remained stoic through the whole ordeal, however, never letting it slip that anything was wrong at home. Still, my heart bled for him, because how could he not be hurting? The angst he was undoubtedly hiding made me pine for him even more.
I just nodded. My parents were still together, and nothing sordid ever happened at my house. Image was everything, and my mother would rather die than let anyone know our lives were less than perfect. I walked a fine line in our home; discipline was first and foremost. I’d never had the opportunity to rebel, however, so it wasn’t all that hard to follow the rules in the first place. My last party consisted of girls from my swim team eating junk food and swooning over romantic comedies like Can’t Buy Me Love, Mannequin, and Sixteen Candles.
Josh’s fingers slid higher, higher, until he had both hands cupped behind my knees. “Do you know how to swim?” he asked, giving them a soft tug.
My jeans shorts scraped against the concrete as I slid closer to the pool. I had to laugh. Did I know how to swim? Swimming was practically the only thing I was any good at. “Um, yeah. I’m on a team, actually. The Sharks?”
Josh tipped his head, appraising me with new eyes. “Cool. I’ve heard of it. I had no idea you were on it, though. Are you planning to swim for the high school tea—” A squeal followed by a loud splash interrupted our conversation, and we looked up just in time to see Hawaiian Swim Trunks launch Suzanne McKenzie into the shallow end of the pool and then hop in after her. Suzanne popped back to the surface, sputtering and laughing, hair smoothed back and the moon lighting up her face. After clearing the water from her eyes, she threw a quick glance in our direction before rising and making a show of adjusting the top of her bright yellow bikini. It wasn’t until Hawaiian Swim Trunks wrapped her up in a bear hug and flung her over his shoulder that Josh finally turned, his face screwed up like he’d just sucked on a lemon.
I knew the two had dated about a year, maybe a year and a half back. But then again, everyone who was anyone in our class had dated at some point, swapping partners as easily as swapping spit. It was kind of gross, when you thought about it—how they worked their way through such a small, elite dating pool. I could only see it getting worse in high school, when those types of relationships became deeper, more intimate. When sex started to be a part of the equation. Or heck. Maybe it already was. The girls—these girls, anyway—seemed exceedingly mature for their age. And me? I was pathetically inexperienced.
But aside from a few dramatic meltdowns in the courtyard before and after school, everyone always managed to stay friends, probably because they all ran in the same circle and had no choice but to coexist or get tossed out of the clique. I didn’t have any reason to suspect Suzanne of ulterior motives just because she was here, in Josh’s pool. They’d broken up so long ago, and in middle school time stretched differently. The school year seemed to go on forever—an entire lifetime could be lived during two measly semesters. And when you tacked on the summers, well, it was like we all aged two years between grades instead of just one.
Besides, it was obvious they were through; her arms were around someone else.
“Hey, do you still want that Bentley Little book?” He gave my legs a little squeeze, the pressure sending chills up my spine and flecking goosebumps on my arms, despite the heat. “You can take it home with you tonight, if you want.”
Happy that he remembered our shared love of horror novels, I nodded. The lights at the bottom of the pool illuminated the water, and the ghost-like way they swam across Josh, the shadows hugging every one of his curves and edges, made everything about him appear sharper, grittier. He suddenly seemed edgy, dangerous, like a character from one of those creepy books I adored so much. It was like his shine lifted for just a moment, revealing something distorted swimming just beneath.
For him, it was the water that was his undoing. It washed away his innocence.
An arrogant grin spread across his face.
Anxiety rippled through my abdomen. Just enough to make me pause.
I pushed the feeing aside.
Josh hopped out of the pool, water dripping from his body, the weight dragging his swim trunks down. He seemed impossibly large all of a sudden, not like a kid at all. There was a light sprinkling of hair on his chest that I hadn’t noticed before, and for some reason seeing it tossed my stomach into a nervous little somersault. He reached for a
towel and ran it over his body, scrubbing it over his head last. When he pulled it away, his hair was twisted into a weird-looking mohawk, the dark locks sticking straight up like porcupine quills. I laughed, and Josh pretended to be confused. “What?” he asked, eyes wide. He rubbed the towel against his cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”
I just laughed harder. Everything tonight seemed so much funnier than it ever had before. Josh pulled his lips into a smirk and smacked me lightly with the towel. “C’mon, you. The book’s in my bedroom.” He tossed a glance over his shoulder, his eyes slowly roaming over the swimmers. “Let’s go hang out in there for a bit, ‘kay?”
In the pool, Suzanne and one of her friends were lounging on the steps in the shallow end and judging what appeared to be a cannon ball contest going down at the other. Her friend gave her a nudge, and Suzanne’s blonde head swiveled our way. Our eyes locked for a moment, and a chill—so unlike the kind that Josh gave me—tickled the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Yeah. All right. That sounds good.” Truth be told, I was eager to get away from the pool and the people in it. Sure, everyone had been perfectly polite so far. Some of the guys had even been downright flirty. And aside from a few narrow-eyed, scathing looks from Suzanne, no one seemed to care that I was there.
But I knew these people, had known them for years, even if it was only from a distance. I knew their temperaments, the way they treated those who weren’t in their clique (which didn’t seem to be all that different from the way they treated each other, to be honest) and I had no desire to insert myself into their world.
Josh wasn’t like them. I knew that. I’d watched him from the corner of my eye for years. Read the lines of his face when no one else bothered to look. Sure, he was popular. And his friends were popular. But underneath all that, somewhere deep beneath the layers of superficial bravado, there was a guy with a good, kind heart. A guy who would sneak off from the pack to do nerdy things like read in the library and come to school extra early for science club meetings.